THIS Rhett Butler Will Never Die

Long time readers know that I've had this obsession/fascination with the idea of obtaining a handful of grave dirt from Eugene O'Neill's gravesite for a very long time now (over 2 years). Not having a jet-setting income and being able to get myself to Boston to do this myself I sought a web buddy that lived in the area to do the deed for me. Two years of searching forums, posting to craigslist-boston, begging area photographers that had an inkling for the bizarre... this last option proved the most promising as this past summer there was a young woman in northern Massachusetts that was doing self portraits in cemeteries and she became intrigued by the idea of doing this for me. Alas, I know not why she failed the task other than she got busy with school and other elements of life. Then, about two weeks ago I created a new group in Flickr called "Cemetery People". A place to contribute photos of people inside cemeteries. I spent a weekend combing Flickr looking fo...

These are photos I took at the house that Eugene O'Neill lived in here in Danville, California. I visited the site the day after his birthday this year. He would have been 119 years old if he were still alive. Click the image to see the full set of photographs. (Soon, I will have some very exciting information to share with you!)

there will be things that you just can't get someone to help you with. case in point: my efforts over the past year to find someone that lives in the Boston area to visit Eugene O'Neill's gravesite in Jamaica Hills, and obtain a handfull of dirt for me. so today i found inspiration to improvise. i called the National Park Service on Monday to make a reservation for a tour of Eugene O'Neill's house, here in Danville. i wanted to go yesterday because it was his birthday yesterday, but they only give tours Wednesday through Sunday. today had to suffice. yesterday would have been a great day to go too because it rained yesterday. the forecast for today was sunny skies. oddly, it actually rained this morning and there were cloudy skies. i got a call at 10am from the park service confirming a spot in the 12:30 tour for me. i scrambled together my camera gear because i wanted to get lots of photos. i'm working on those now as we speak and they will be up on my flickr a...

I am much more familiar with the life and works of Eugene O'Neill. For one thing, he lived not more than 6 miles from where I live in Danville, California . He spent his last productive years here when he wrote his greatest works. Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was a Nobel-prize winning American playwright. More than any other dramatist, O'Neill introduced American drama to the dramatic realism pioneered by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg, and was the first to use true American vernacular in his speeches. His plays involve characters who inhabit the fringes of society, engaging in depraved behavior, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote only one comedy (Ah, Wilderness!): all his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism. http://nobelprize.org/nobe...

ok, one of you must be responsible for the things that are suddenly coming together and i want to know who it is NOW! no, i'm kidding. i don't believe that any individual is any more responsible for the synchronicity of events than saying that a divine force could be responsible... but still, something has shifted significant, symbolic and timely events into focus and i'm getting a little blown away by it. one thing that sort of started this whole ball rolling was meeting this guy in town named "Phil". he is a painter and there is an amazing portrait that another painter in town painted of him.; it's on the wall at this Starbutz on Love Lane in Danville and "Phil" likes to sit beneath it. i'm beginning to think of him as an unofficial mayor of this town as he knows everyone it seems and you can always seem to find him when you need to with little effort. anyway, the first day i met him we got onto the subject of "my novel" about Eugene ...

"I love life. But I don't love life because it is pretty. Prettiness is only clothes-deep. I am a truer lover than that. I love it naked. There is beauty to me even in its ugliness. In fact, I deny the ugliness entirely, for it's vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always closer to a revelation... "To me, the tragic alone has that significant beauty which is truth. It is the meaning of life - and the hope. The noblest is eternally the most tragic. The people who succeed and do not push on to a greater failure are the spiritual middle-classers. Their stopping at success is the proof of their compromising insignificance. How petty their dreams must have been!" ~Eugene O'Neill (These words cheer me on so strongly in the face of the difficulties I'm facing right now. Thank you Mr. O'Neill for finding the voice to utter these truths.)

looks like the Yankees are not going to the playoffs. at least i am not the only loser today. at least they are out playing the game though. i started to take more Cymbalta 2 days ago, so now i am up to 40mg a day; 20 when i wake up and 20 at dinner time. and for now i am in the throes of adjusting. which means i feel really lousy physically, and emotionally. fine time for it to happen to as this weekend is sock-full of great things i could be out doing. tonight at the ashram is the annual celebration of Muktananda's mahasamahdi , the biggest get-together they have of the year. and i feel no inclination to attend at all. in fact, i've been in bed all day and will go right back there after i finish writing this. two other things that are happening are literary events. the main one is in Danville, just 5 miles away; The Eugene O'Neill Festival - there are talks being given all day by professors and authorities and i would have loved to have attended these, especia...